Our job is to demystify and explain

Suzanne McGee, who has begun writing a column for The Guardian’s U.S. business section, writes about what business journalists should be doing in their work.

McGee writes, “Only a minority of those who write about personal finance will be investigative reporters, digging into topics such as the allegations that Merrill Lynch and other institutions manipulated that auction-rate securities market. But too often, those investigations take place only after the fact. That may give you a sense of ‘closure’, I suppose, but it’s not going to help your portfolio recover from the hit it just took.

“What a financial journalist can do is draw attention to corners of the market that are particularly complex: the targets of a lot of marketing on the part of financial institutions that develop investment products, or those that appear to be the focus of irrational exuberance or undue apathy. Ideally, what we choose to write about will help you cut through the jargon, and help you think critically, just the best financial professionals do. The hope is that you can soon pose tough questions of your own to anyone who suggests that Financial Product A or Stock B is a one-stop solution to your investment needs.

“What none of us can or should do is to suggest that a given stock, investment strategy, product or idea is the right thing to do at any given time. So if you’re looking for a list of ‘Five Stocks to Own This Winter!’, you might want to move along in your quest for a pundit’s quick advice.”

Read more here.